Housing.com to Raise $35M from Existing Investor SoftBank

Housing to Raise $35M from SoftBank to Expand in Four Business Areas, Image Source

Mumbai-based online real estate portal, Housing.com is raising around $35 million from Japan’s SoftBank to step up its focus on revenue generation by building an advertisement-based business. An individual directly familiar with the matter told iamwire that the deal amount has not been finalised, but the firm is certainly going to close another round from its existing investor.

Also, BusinessWorld today published that, “Housing.com is valued at less than $50 million and a large listings and classified business approached the company to buy them out for as little as $30 million.” But as per the above mentioned source, their coverage is baseless. A year ago it had raised $100 million from Softbank at a valuation of $250 million which is now said to be at around $350 million, as also confirmed by ET.

With this funding, the company also plans to expand in four new business areas including commercial real estate, design, software development and due-diligence on the ground.

SoftBank which has been observed to be investing in other Indian startups such as Ola, Housing and Snapdeal, is also planning to acquire 25-30% of stakes in the startup, Oyo Rooms.

India’s real estate market is expected to reach $180 billion by 2020 from $ 93.8 billion in 2014. It is currently the fourth-largest sector in the country in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows which was stood at around $ 24.07 billion during April 2000–May 2015 stood at around US, as per IBEF report.